I've taken an interest in these oddball pre-Famicom consoles, and I was wondering if there is any contemporary (or past) homebrew/amateur programming for these systems? Flash carts? Technical documentation? Google is coming up empty.

I don't know exactly about the Cassette Vision or Bandai things, but this Japanese guy's site has had some pretty detailed specs/info about old JP consoles & computers for a while: http://homepage3.nifty.com/takeda-toshiya/

With the exception that we use "homebrew" to refer explicitly to games made on systems we really aren't supposed to work on without going through a strict curator (e.g. as with consoles), while 自作ゲーム is more generic (I've seen it used a lot to refer to free PC games, if Nico Nico is anything to go by). I mean, both INR and Custom Fighter (カスタムファイター) are labeled 自作ゲーム by their own developers even though they're just free PC games made by people in their spare time.

EDIT: also I hope the thread was about Super Cassette Vision, because the original Cassette Vision only provides the controllers and TV output - each cartridge included the whole "console" in it (CPU, etc.).

EDIT:

ccovell wrote:

I don't know exactly about the Cassette Vision or Bandai things, but this Japanese guy's site has had some pretty detailed specs/info about old JP consoles & computers for a while: http://homepage3.nifty.com/takeda-toshiya/

EDIT: also I hope the thread was about Super Cassette Vision, because the original Cassette Vision only provides the controllers and TV output - each cartridge included the whole "console" in it (CPU, etc.).

So it took my occasionally-repeated "make a TV tuner and plug in a PS3" joke literally. Would a famiclone be feasible?

I have no idea exactly what goes through the Cassette Vision, but I would imagine so. The video signal is generated entirely on the cartridge, so that part is clear, same with CPU and RAM (no idea about sound, but it's not generated on the console itself either). Your biggest problem would be the controllers being a completely different beast, but I would assume that if you were making the game exclusively for the Cassette Vision (or at least a dedicated version for it), you could just change the code accordingly.

EDIT: also I hope the thread was about Super Cassette Vision, because the original Cassette Vision only provides the controllers and TV output - each cartridge included the whole "console" in it (CPU, etc.).

No, I was referring to the original Cassette Vision, and I didn't know it had a system-on-a-chip. That's why I was asking about info! Do you know of any technical documentation, or is that info from first-hand investigation?

So, the console allows each game to use its own unique hardware, yet they reused the same hardware with every game? Huh... well I guess you could try figuring out how those games work. Sadly you won't be able to make homebrew on a stock console without sacrificing an existing cartridge or doing it in a FPGA or the like. (alternatively, make a console that has those innards already in it, but then it won't be stock anymore)

Atari's Pong [...] triggered the development of NEC single-chip television game processor LSI, µPD777, in which I was involved starting 4/1977 until 4/1978. Because the frequency of VHF (Very High Frequency) television channel 3 & 4 was different between US and Japan, I had to calibrate the frequency to get the right game screen on television set opening the lid in Japan.[... in another document a formal certificate with the subtitle:]For the development of single-chip video game processor LSI, µPD777, µPD778, from NEC (3/14/1984)

I think there's enough information on his web site to create an FPGA softcore, but I'm not confident. There's certainly no other way to program for it: it does not seem to have ever been released in a version that could address external or internal programmable memory.

The only thing I thought was cool was the video hardware's ability to draw angular tiles somehow.

Dunno, seems like a normal character-based video mode with six possible characters (blank, filled, and four 90º triangles), and each character can only have its foreground color defined (the background is always black), and the palette is pretty lackluster too.

The Epoch Cassette Vision audio chip seems very interesting! I've done some preliminary research on it and have found some datasheets, but I believe how it's wired to the board/carts makes it very limited in its capabilities. Nonetheless, it's capable of making some very interesting sounds and music.

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